


more distant and more solemn than a fading star

by allumerlesoir



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: all discussion of mental health influenced by my own mental health, continuation of the legion au, general mindfrickery ahoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 08:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10738149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allumerlesoir/pseuds/allumerlesoir
Summary: Understanding and extinction bordered the fine line between mutual reality and his own, and Will was loathe to dance upon that line.





	more distant and more solemn than a fading star

One day, when Will was tired and pensive - but then again, when was he not? - he decided to try his best to figure out why a voice other than his own spoke in his head. Sleeping may have been more suited to his predicament, but he feared that closing his eyes would invite nightmares, and he had already dreamed of death one too many times.  

Books had little information on voices in one's head; pretty much everything he read directed him to schizophrenia and dissociative disorders, and although he definitely had some sort of abnormal psychology, he knew enough about his brain to know that Hannibal and the space he inhabited were far from a part of that. Correlation does not equal causation. The Internet had few answers, though he did read some reports of shadows inside skulls, whispers across brainwaves that meshed and flowed and yet did not fit at all, and he wondered if perhaps he was one of few, or one of none other than himself. He had never been drawn to recognition or to uniqueness, and the last thing Will wanted to be recognized for was Hannibal. 

He remembered being younger, and Hannibal's voice a clear whisper in his mind, calling to him and creating games for him to play. Often, Hannibal encouraged him to run, chasing after something unseen, and Will obeyed, because why would he not? Hannibal was no harbinger of doom, despite what the books that labeled all voices without bodies signs of mental disturbance might say. 

Sometimes, as he got older, he tried to invite Hannibal to speak. Hannibal seemed more of one to speak when he felt like it, not when he was bidden, but occasionally, Will could convince Hannibal to enter into conversation. Their dialogues were strange, and Will sometimes found himself speaking out loud and, if others were around, probably inviting unwarranted and unbecoming analyses of his personality. 

"Hannibal?" 

_"Will."_

"Why are you inside my head?" 

_"Why does anything happen?"_

"I didn't ask that; I asked why you are inside my head." 

_"In the vast universe, that pales in comparison to the why of life, the why of existence."_

"Then _why_ are you _existing_ inside my head?" His conversations with Hannibal, when they did happen, were all too often exasperating, yet somehow invigorating like no other action was. 

And then, when Hannibal gave no answer, a vaguely horrifying thought. "Would you exist if I did not? If I had never been born, what...what would you be?" 

_"I am matter and being, just as you are, Will, yet my form is not corporeal. I have existed for millennia, perhaps since the stars burst into being, and my existence has never been dependent upon yours."_

And then, the terror began to sink into Will's bones. "Is mine dependent upon yours?" 

Hannibal gave no answer, and perhaps the absence of an answer was the answer itself. 

Back in the current time, the mutual reality of humanity, Will closed a tab on his browser and buried his head in his hands, scratching at his scalp through his hair. How was he supposed to understand, or even begin to conceive of in any sort of logical, objective way, the existence of something that was not supposed to exist, and by any reason, could not exist? 

Reason told him to see a psychiatrist, and then, if no answers could be deigned, visit a neurologist. Or just check himself into the psychiatrist ward and see what they could do with him. 

But some part of him - perhaps even all of him - wanted Hannibal to stay, and he sensed that telling people about him would make him leave, either by force of others with their words and their medications, or by Hannibal's own choosing. He wasn't sure that he could - or that he would - live without Hannibal's voice echoing across his brain. 

He closed the lid of his laptop and walked over to his bed, yanking his shirt off and throwing it on the floor as he went. Nightmares be damned, sanity could go to hell - he was too tired to keep his eyes open any longer. He wished for warm, quiet sleep, without any images dancing through his subconscious, and closed his eyes. 

Of course, Hannibal was ever-present, a reminder in his mind that he would never be alone. And the whisper echoed through him as he felt himself sailing down the river to sleep, intoning - 

_You are not alone, Will. You are not alone._

And his mind was made up - he could not pursue understanding of the one being who loved him without reason, without condition. 

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic in my Legion AU (I'll think of a better name soon)! Thanks again to all of the lovely comments on the first fic I wrote for this AU - I am really enjoying the exploration of this universe, and I'm excited to keep working on it. Title from "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot, same as the title for the first fic.


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